Reflections and Collections for the 21st Century Social Studies Classroom
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3/23/2020

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Teachable Moments during the COVID-19 School Closure

 
By Matt Doran

​What can you do to continue the learning at home during the extended school closure? If you are a social studies teacher or interested parent, you really don’t need the latest temporarily-free app. Instead, pose these three questions:
  1. What makes a government action legitimate?
  2. How should governments balance individual rights with the common good?
  3. Do citizens trust the government? 

Watch/read the news and write a daily journal reflection on these questions. When the crisis is over, you will have created a new primary source about this event. Then, go back through history and make connections and comparisons across time and place. Here is a historical look at question 3 since 1958 from the Pew Research Center: Public Trust in Government: 1958-2019. 

​Your students will learn way more from this exercise than filling out digital worksheets.
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7/18/2019

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On Cognitive Dissonance

 
By Matt Doran

My social media posts typically fall well behind the news cycle (if they even make to publication). Rather than retweeting and linking to articles about the issue du jour, I try to use social media platforms in educative ways that promote contemplation and reflection.

One question many have recently asked: How is it that seemingly decent people justify and rationalize fundamentally deplorable policies and leaders? The psychological phenomenon of cognitive dissonance helps us understand why individuals will often "explain away" the indefensible. Cognitive dissonance refers the mental discomfort that results from contradictory beliefs, or when our beliefs run contrary to our behaviors (especially in light of new evidence). We seek consistency in our attitudes and perceptions. When what we believe is challenged, something must change in order to reduce the dissonance (lack of agreement).

The need for dissonance reduction is especially acute when it involves beliefs about the self. Everyone wants to believe they are fundamentally good people who make good decisions (about health, finances, politics, etc). But sometimes the evidence mounts against us. In government and politics, this happens when parties and leaders engage in actions and policies that violate clear moral and ethical boundaries. To reduce the dissonance, supporters must change a belief--either I'm not so good at making decisions after all, or the actions/policies are justified.

Aesop's fable, the Fox and the Grapes, helps illustrate cognitive dissonance. The Fox noticed a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a high vine. After multiple attempts to jump for the grapes, the Fox fell short. He finally concludes that the sour grapes are not worth it after all. Clearly, the Fox believed two things: the grapes are desirable and he had the ability to reach them. But when the evidence showed the falsity of his belief about himself, the Fox reduces the dissonance by rationalizing that the grapes really aren't so desirable.

Here's a good explanation of cognitive dissonance: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012
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7/11/2019

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Wineburg on Media Literacy

 

​From Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone) by Sam Wineburg. 

"Wedging a media literacy course into an already crammed curriculum is like slapping a new coat of paint on a house that's teetering on its foundation: it lends to better street appeal but it does little to address the underlying problem.
Making headway will entail more than a four-week media or news literacy course. It will require a fundamental reorientation to the curriculum. . . .

What once fell on the shoulders of editors, publishers, librarians, and subject matter experts now falls on the shoulders of each and every one of us. The big problem with this new reality is that the ill-informed hold just as much power at the polling station as the well-informed. Reliable information is to civic intelligence what clean air and water are to public health. . . .
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Jefferson's solution is no less apt today than it was in his era. 'If we think [the people] are not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.'"

​- Sam Wineburg

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7/4/2019

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Patriotism and Historical Analysis

 
By Matt Doran

Especially on patriotic holidays, our propensity is to sanctify the causes of our wars. But clear historical analysis compels a more complex and nuanced narrative.

The back cover of 
Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth by Holger Hoock gives us pause for reflection and analysis. 
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1/19/2019

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Social Studies: Too Important to Test

 
by Matt Doran

This month we began year three of our middle school professional development program, with an emphasis on pedagogical content knowledge. We are focusing our discussions on creating and implementing a vision for social studies in alignment with the
C3 Framework.


Since social studies is not a state-tested subject in Ohio middle schools, there is often a perception that it is the least important of the core subjects. Balderdash. The opposite is true: Social studies is too important to force into the constraints of state testing. Free from the yoke of testing, middle school social studies teachers have the freedom and flexibility to execute a vision of social studies education that aligns with both the original intent of social studies and its vital purpose in 21st century democracies. The skills, reasoning capacities, and civic dispositions social studies cultivates cannot be effectively captured through a standardized test.  
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The centrality of social studies among the school subjects lies not in its place within the cesspool of corporate testing and sham accountability systems, but in its instrumental purpose in modern democracies. As conceived by the Report of the Social Studies Committee in 1916, social studies is a discipline designed to actualize a Deweyan vision of pragmatism in education.  Drawing from a wide-range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, social studies aims to tap into students’ interests and use inquiry-learning to solve real-world problems. Its purpose is explicitly instrumental: to improve society.

Having emerged in the Progressive Era, the creation of the social studies in school curricula was part of a broader response to the ills and excesses of Gilded Age industrial capitalism.  The Progressive Era ushered in democratic reforms in states (referendum, initiative, recall) and the U.S. Constitution (17th and 19th amendments). Laws were passed to safeguard food production and the environment,  limit the power of corporate trusts and monopolies, and establish compulsory public education.

In the decades since the Progressive Era, historians and social scientists of the various disciplines that make-up social studies have defined thinking skills central to the disciplines. Such skills include conducting original research, contextualizing historical sources, creating and analyzing data sets, evaluating sources, supporting arguments with evidence, and unpacking cause-and-effect relationships.

Many scholars today argue that we are living in a Second Gilded Age, defined by social and economic inequality and political corruption.  Even if one doesn’t agree with this characterization of our present times, it is difficult to imagine a case being made against the critical importance of social studies in the 21st century. Do we need increased civic engagement, better civil discourse, more cultural awareness, heightened concern for social justice, greater discernment in evaluating the credibility of information, creative cross-disciplinary solutions to real-world problems, and sharper ethical thinking skills? If so, then we need more social studies, not less.  As Natalie Wexler has written in a recent Forbes article, “We know that only a minority of students will end up working in STEM fields. But virtually all will be expected to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.”
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With great freedom comes great responsibility. As social studies teachers, we bear the responsibilities of communicating the importance of our vision to the broader community, and designing and aligning our curriculum to meet this instrumental purpose.  We cannot decry state testing on the one hand, while continuing to pack our non-tested courses with a superfluity of Googleable names, dates, and facts on the other. In Why Learn History, When It’s Already on Your Phone, Sam Wineburg describes the ongoing work of the Stanford History Education Group to “change history class from a forced march through an all-knowing textbook to a journey where students, to invoke the late Ted Sizer, ‘learn to use their minds well.’ ”  In practice, this requires more student-centered inquiry, research, problem solving, disciplinary thinking, discussion, presentations, and taking informed civic action.
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11/2/2018

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Social Studies Anchor Charts/Reference Sheets for Historical Thinking

 

by Matt Doran

Anchor charts help make thinking visible by identifying key content, strategies, and processes during the learning process. Posting anchor charts (and/or distributing reference sheets) provides a scaffold tool for students as they read, discuss, and write about ideas in class.

The four new anchor charts below are designed for use in the social studies classroom to support students in historical event analysis, close reading of primary and secondary sources, classroom discussions, and evidence-based writing.

Download the posters here:
  • Questions to Ask About Historical Events
  • Analyzing Cause and Effect in History
  • Reasons to Question the Credibility of a Source
  • Avoiding Logical Fallacies in History & Social Sciences

The posters can be printed on 8 1/2 x 11, 8 x 14 or scaled all the way up 24 x 60 on a poster printer.
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4/23/2017

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10 Web-based Interactives to Foster Disciplinary Thinking and Decision-Making Skills in Middle School Social Studies

 
by Matt Doran

​For a recent professional development workshop, I set out to create learning modules that would introduce middle school teachers to some interactive online games and simulations. Finding quality interactives that met my search parameters proved be a challenging task, but one that resulted in a good collection of digital interactives. 

Search Parameters

First, the interactives needed to align with one of five themes based on our middle school social studies standards (created as Google Classroom “breakouts” for the PD experience): American History/Civics, Ancient History, Economics, Medieval/Early Modern History, and World Geography.  

Second, to align with the pedagogical emphasis of the PD experience, these interactives also needed to go beyond trivia or review games. They needed to emphasize process standards in the areas of historical or spatial thinking and decision-making skills. Our state content standards are mostly conceptual in nature (cause-and-effect, patterns, processes)-- so most military simulation games really didn’t fit the parameters well.

Third, the interactives needed to be web-based (not downloaded software) and free of charge. Since we are a chromebook district, I did not worry about mobile capability with iOS, so flash games were fair game.  


Results
After searching with a variety of keywords and using many online lists (and finding many broken links), I came up with the collection below, organized by theme.  (Note: the quality of these interactives varies greatly, but I avoided a rating system for now.)

American History/Civics
  • DocsTeach provides access thousands of primary sources. Teachers can borrow from a collection of document-based activities created by the National Archives, copy and modify activities for their students, and create their own activities using the online tools.  
  • Mission US engages students in the study of transformational moments in American history. The game immerses players in rich, historical settings and then empowers them to make choices that illuminate how ordinary people experienced the past. 

Ancient History
  • Dig into History - Mesopotamia has students begin in Collect and Catalog to dig for Mesopotamian artifacts in Iraq. Then they curate a Museum Exhibition using photographs of the artifacts they found.
  • Discover Ancient Egypt provides six games on life in ancient Egypt: The Three Pyramids, Egyptian Tomb Adventure, Land of the Egyptians, Dress Like an Egyptian, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and Temple Store Games

Economics
  • Gen i Revolution includes 16 interactive missions in which students complete a variety of activities to help them learn important personal finance concepts.  
  • Trading Around the World allows students to experience the challenges and excitement of international trade. Players try to get the best price for the goods they sell and the biggest bargains for the goods they buy. 


Medieval/Early Modern History
  • Renaissance: Become a Spice Trader makes players the owner of a large sailing ship. They sail around the world and trade goods with other countries.  
  • Merchants of the Great Exchange is based on a book written by British merchants traveling and trading in the East whose goal was to return alive and with enough goods to sell in England to make a profit. 


World Geography
  • Map Maker Interactive allows users to create and analyze custom maps with physical and human features. 
  • National Geographic Educational Games includes a collection of more than 20 games ranging from science & engineering, history & culture, and geographic decision-making. 


Questions for Reflection and Discussion (Feel free to comment below)

1. What do you see as the benefits of online simulation activities?

2. How could you incorporate these activities into classroom instruction? (even if you do not have 1:1 devices)

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12/3/2016

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#NCSS16 Reflection 2: Developing Civic Online Reasoning And News Literacy

 
by Matt Doran

This year’s election was a keen reminder to all of us in the civic education community of the importance of teaching students how to evaluate online information.  Fake news--in the form of click bait, political propaganda, falsified images, and spurious memes--permeates social media feeds today. Craig Silverman of Buzzfeed highlights the problem in the video linked here. How do we teach students (and citizens) to evaluate online information in order to make informed decisions?

The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and the News Literacy Project (NLP) are both taking up the worthy task helping students evaluate online information. SHEG has recently developed and administered assessment tasks for civic online reasoning--the ways in which students search for, assess, and evaluate online information. Civic online reasoning consists of three core competencies: 1) Who is behind the information? 2) What is the evidence? and 3) What do other sources say?  

​In increasing order of complexity, here are three performance tasks SHEG developed to assess students' use of online information.
  • Students are asked to identify who is behind the information by examining various page components from Slate.com. Students are asked to distinguish between news, sponsored content (which is often disguised), and advertisements.
  • Students have to determine whether an anonymous photograph of mutated daisies on Imagur provides evidence about the impact of a Japanese nuclear reactor meltdown.  See some sample students responses here.
  • Students are provided with two web pages on gun control and asked which page would be a better starting point for research on gun control.  The first page is linked to Duke University’s website. The second page is a Wikipedia article. This task is complicated by the fact that students are often taught superficial ways to evaluate information. Many students are taught to trust .edu sites, but never to use Wikipedia. In this case, however, the .edu site is an unknown user’s personal webpage hosted on Duke’s server and contains articles reprinted from NRA brochures.  

The News Literacy Project has developed a suite of teaching tools and elearning modules for evaluating online information:
  • Online rumors provide a teachable moment. The Dissect It! graphic organizer helps students understand the emotional responses and sharing motivators for rumors.  Viral rumors appeal to us by appealing to the emotional responses of dread, hope, hostility, and curiosity.  People spread these rumors for four primary reasons: self-interest, influence, altruism, and malice.  
  • Ten Questions for Fake News Detection is a tool that allows students to identify potential red flags that should make them skeptical about the credibility of the news source.
  • NLP’s Checkology.org website provides an elearning course with four modules: filtering news and information, exercising civic freedom, navigating today’s landscape, and how two know what to believe.  ​

We have much work to do in the field of civic education in order to help our students become informed participatory citizens. As the methods of receiving and processing information change in the 21st century, our teaching approaches must keep up. SHEG’s civic online reasoning and NLP’s news literacy tools can help us accomplish this task.
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12/2/2016

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#NCSS16 Reflection 1: Historical Thinking Matters on the New SAT

 
by Matt Doran
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The emphasis on historical thinking and critical textual analysis has been one of the most positive developments in the field of social studies education in recent years. Reading Like a Historian, Document-Based Questions, Common Core Literacy in History, the C3 Framework, and the new AP U.S. History all place these skills at the forefront of effective history/social science pedagogy.   While these have been important skills within the discipline for some time, they are increasingly being recognized as interdisciplinary skills as well.  Accordingly, the myth that social studies must be a  “backburner” subject can be thoroughly debunked.

At the 2016 National Council for the Social Studies Conference,  I was excited to see how the new SAT is assessing and reporting on students' abilities to critically analyze history and social science related texts on the Reading, Writing & Language, and Math tests. The texts are drawn from a category of “U.S. Founding Documents and Texts from the Great Global Conversation.”  These include, “engaging, often historically and culturally important, works grappling with the issues at the heart of civic and political life.”  Students need to be able to: read historical sources, cite evidence to support arguments, and interpret informational social science graphics.  On the Math test, questions involving problem solving & data analysis can assess students’ understanding of how to draw a reliable conclusion to a social studies research question.

Six full-length practice tests for the SAT can be accessed online here: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests.  To group the questions related to history/social studies, download the “Scoring Your SAT Practice Test” for each test and scroll to the section labeled “Get Cross-Test Scores” (green).  

The inclusion of history/social studies textual analysis on the new SAT also demonstrates the increasing alignment of College Board initiatives.  College Board recommends using the practice DBQs and Short-Answer Questions from the new AP U.S. History as SAT preparation tools. This is another positive step in the direction of developing the critically-minded students and citizens we need for the 21st century world.  

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10/15/2016

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A Baker's Dozen Apps for Content Literacy

 
by Matt Doran                                                                 Updated infographic with new content literacy tools 2/2/19
Skills: What do we want students to be able to do? Critically analyze texts, research to deepen understanding, and construct evidence-based arguments. 

Literacy across the curriculum goals can be summarized in three learning targets:

1. Read Closely for Textual Details
  • Question Texts
  • Analyze Central Ideas and Supporting Details
  • Explain the Meaning of Words in Context
  • Compare Perspectives in Sources

2. Research to Deepen Understanding
  • Initiate Inquiry
  • Gather Information
  • Analyze and Evaluate Information
  • Communicate Evidence-Based Arguments

3. Construct Evidence-Based Arguments
  • Develop claims
  • Support claims with evidence
  • Use sound reasoning to connect evidence and claims

Here are 13 web tools and apps that support one or more of these targets. All of these tools are free at some level; some also offer upgraded premium versions. 
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